Just a few more weeks until Easter. The best tip we can give families when it comes to special occasions, special events, holidays and anything that your child will experience that it not ordinarily in their day to day routine is to PRACTICE! For example, an Easter egg hunt is not likely a part of your child’s daily, weekly or monthly routine so we need to MAKE IT A ROUTINE in order for your child to succeed during that family, community, school or church Easter egg hunt. How do we do this? PRACTICE!

The earlier you can start practicing the special routine with your child, the better. Start simple and work your way up to what your child will be experiencing on the big day. First, let your child have some time to physically manipulate the Easter items like empty plastic eggs, their basket, the Easter grass, etc. They need time to explore these unfamiliar objects in order to be comfortable with them and to play with them appropriately.

Next, start with small egg hunts in your home and physically help your child participate. Try starting with empty plastic eggs. Be sure to sing songs about what you are doing “Where are the eggs……where are the eggs……” and use simple language while pointing (“Look! Egg on chair! Egg in basket! More eggs!”) in order to help your child understand, attend and comment. You can start with hunting for just a few eggs in the living room then work your way up to many eggs in several different rooms. Your child is probably going to want to open each egg as they find them. That is okay! You can try using colored hard boiled eggs too but know that your child will need to time to physically explore these as well and they may squish or drop them. This is okay to! Think of what will be easiest for your child and what they would enjoy the most and go with that. Again, set them up to succeed.

Once your child is successful indoors with the egg hunt, you can then move the hunt outside. Maybe your child has better joint attention and language outdoors instead of indoors. If so, you can practice outdoors at first instead of indoors with the same “build your way up” idea. Start with a few eggs in a localized area and then try more eggs throughout the whole yard. You know your child the best and what environments they prefer so go with your instincts.

If your child will be engaging in an egg hunt in a location other than your home, see if you can practice in that location beforehand. This will give your child more familiarity and exposure to the environment and the egg hunt routine within that environment which will help them succeed on Easter day. If you know the eggs your child will be hunting will be filled with candy and your child is on a special diet, ask the other adults involved if you can replace the candy with stickers and fun toys instead. Offer to make small treat bags for the children that are not on special diets that you can pass out before or after the egg hunt.

In addition to practicing and rehearsing the special routine, there are also many other supports you can provide your child in order to help them become successful on the big day. You can use these types of transactional supports with any holiday or special event:

-Social stories or personalized books: Write a simple story with your child as the main character explaining what will happen on the day of the event. Use photos of your child and the people your child will be with on that day within the book or story. Use simple language that your child can understand. Read the story a couple times a day for several days leading up to the special event.

-Visuals: Visuals will only help your child. You can create a how-to list for the activity or event (how-to go on an Easter egg hunt) and be sure to add visuals with the words. You can write up the list for your child and draw a stick figure or use clip art next to the words to help your child understand.

Example of step by step visual board for an Easter egg hunt with a few extra symbols for commenting and social interaction:

Example of listed out steps on a wipe off board for readers:

-Look at Easter photos from previous years: Get out your old photo albums or sit at the computer and look at photos together. This exposure will help remind your child what to expect and will help your child become more familiar with the routines.

-Look at catalogues with Easter photos: This may also add to your child’s interest of the special occasion and increase their familiarity.

-Engage in fun Easter-related activities such as reading Easter books, doing Easter art like a collage with pictures from a magazine or painting Easter pages, decorating Easter eggs, letting your child help you shop for Easter eggs and baskets, playing in an Easter sensory tub, playing Easter games and singing Easter songs. Check out our previous blog for some helpful links and book ideas: http://www.autismspot.com/blog/Preparing-Easter .

The more practice and exposure to the holiday or special occasion your child receives prior to the big day, the more you are setting your child up to succeed and also the more fun you, your child, your family and your friends will have. Have fun practicing!

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